Spoiler alert: This is the weekly blog for Smash, episode four, shown on NBC on 27 February 2012

'There's no need to apologise. I was just looking at past happiness. But you're my happiness now'

Thank you Angelica Huston for the perfect delivery of what may be the three most camp lines ever uttered on a television show. With those lines and that delivery Smash finally became what it should be: a completely over-the-top, glittery, slightly stupid guilty pleasure. If I'm honest I don't even feel that guilty about it. Other people hate this show, and I completely understand why. I cannot however join them because, in all honesty, I love Smash. I love it for its corny lines and its insistence on including the sort of cheesy scenes we've seen in a million bad chick flicks (including this week that classic, the make-over scene, oh Karen, just close your eyes and think of Ally Sheedy). I adore its writers' apparent belief that none of us actually know any facts about world famous movie star Marilyn Monroe, not to mention their heavy-handed use of foreshadowing (hands up who doesn't think Michael and Julia will be in bed within two episodes based on their inability to complete a conversation this week). Most of all I am delighted that Raza Jaffrey is apparently contractually obliged to leave one too many buttons undone on his shirt every episode. If Smash managed to operate on this week's level of daftness every week, I would be very happy.

'You didn't sign up to be champion this time, you signed up to be a backing singer'

This week's main plot was the growing rivalry between Ivy and Karen as insecure Ivy essentially tried to get Karen kicked off the show. Judging by her tearful outburst we're possibly meant to feel sorry for the talented Karen and think that Ivy is at best an insecure mess and at worst an overbearing diva. The problem is that Ivy has a point. Karen really ought to get over the fact that she didn't get the part and knuckle down to do the best job she can in the ensemble. It's interesting that her response when Dev quite sensibly told her to keep her head down was to say 'I'm not supposed to keep my head down, I'm supposed to play to the balcony'. I don't think this is true when you're the backing dancer/singer and not the star. I also can't be the only person who collapsed with laughter during Kat McPhee's over-enthusiastic mugging during the singing and dancing ­– if I was Ivy, I'd have been terrified of being elbowed right off the stage.

Actually, I sort of think Smash would be a better show if they concentrated on the core of ice at Karen's heart and made her into an Eve Harrington character, prepared to do anything for her goal. It might just be because I find her entitled and stroppy rather than relatable and endearing but I would genuinely applaud if the show turned out not to be about her journey from naïf to star but rather about what it costs to become a star and the price you pay in your soul to get it.

However, while there were hints in the final Adele number that the show could go there – 'Just cause I said it, don't mean that I meant it' – I don't think it will. Instead I rather think we were meant to think 'Oh Karen can't help stepping into the limelight she's a natural star' rather than 'Oh Karen can't even perform one number as a group, she'll do anything to stand out.'

In other news Nick Jonas was just fine as successful teen TV star Lyle West despite the horrible MOR Michael Buble cover, although I can't be the only one who thought that there was something slightly unsavoury about Tom and Derek's squabbling over which one 'discovered' him as a child and Tom went on a date set up by his mother (a plot point I enjoyed despite its continued propagation of the laughable idea that Tom is the only gay man on Broadway).

Rachel Berry jazz hands award

McPhee might have got the Adele number but the night's best moment belonged hands down to Hilty and her performance of Howl which showed how much fun this show can be when they get it right. In fact like that other great guilty pleasure Gossip Girl Smash was saved by a ridiculously over-the-top social occasion to which three-quarters of the cast were spuriously invited. I feel it could only be improved by the shoehorning in of one such pointless extravaganza every week.

Dirty Derek's devious moment of the week

Arm stroking, bottom squeezing, eye-lash fluttering, it was a solid night's work from Derek who managed to top off his justification for the bottom pinching 'I would flirt with every one here if it meant they'd pour money into this musical' by turning to Ivy and saying 'the bedrooms really are incredible here' thus taking their relationship into new levels of ickyness. Well done, Derek.

Marilyn-o-meter

Just the one anvilicious Marilyn mention this week when an otherwise beautifully observed conversation between Julia and Eileen was ruined by the shoehorning in of Yet. More. Facts. We. Already. Know. About. Marilyn. Sigh. That said, as with Julia and Tom, I will happily watch Julia and Eileen shoot the breeze, as there's a charm to their scenes that carries them over even the largest of bad dialogue bumps.

Pithy putdown of the week

In what was a great episode for well-delivered corn – 'Is there a TV star, I'm too dazzled by the piano player' remarked Tom's date with an admirably straight face just beating Bobby's accurate assessment of Dev as 'important and good-looking' for non-Angelica Huston line of the night – Derek grabbed the best putdown, magnificently combining cheese and sarcasm as he told Ivy: "Then go back to the chorus, there's nothing safe about being a star."

Oh Smash, you're not a good show but when you throw out lines like that I love you from the bottom of my bad dance film adoring heart.